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I’ve always found something morbidly fascinating about
watching talented actors and actresses give their all to a project that doesn’t deserve it. I start to try to figure out if and when they knew it was a
disaster. Was it during the extended “kidney theft urban legend” bit? Was it when
the director asked him to play a scene in which his tights get ripped off by a
Mexican woman calling herself Sarah McLachlan? Was it during the scene in which
a child falsely accuses them of molestation? When did these very funny and
undeniably talented TV actors know that “Search Party” was a disaster? Delayed
almost two full years since its original release date and now barely released after being out on DVD in Europe for over a year,
one gets the feeling that “Search Party” wouldn’t even be getting its minor
release if stars T.J. Miller & Thomas Middleditch hadn’t proved such
resonant comic chemistry on HBO’s “Silicon Valley” and the always funny Adam
Pally hadn’t connected in films like last year’s “Night Owls” and the upcoming
Sundance hit “Joshy.” Otherwise, I imagine “Search Party” would have been
buried in the failed comedy cemetery in which it belongs.

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One can almost see the thinking process that led to “Search
Party.” Get a bunch of talented TV actors together, hire a director who has
written buddy comedies (Scot Armstrong, who has a co-writing credit on “The Hangover, Part II” and a story credit on “Old School”),
and why not pick up Tim Orr, the cinematographer from “Pineapple Express” for good
measure? It will write itself! No, it won’t.

Nardo (Thomas Middleditch) is going to marry Tracy (Shannon
Woodward of “Raising Hope”) but has a stoned conversation that leads buddy
Jason (T.J. Miller) to believe that he should put a stop to the wedding despite the
more reasonable Evan’s (Adam Pally) protestations. (In “Hangover” casting terms,
Middleditch ends up being the wacky Zach Galifianakis, Pally is undeniably the Ed Helms,
and Miller is the reckless Bradley Cooper). When Jason breaks the wedding up, Tracy
goes on the honeymoon anyway, leading Nardo to try to follow her to Mexico. Before
you know it, Nardo is calling Jason & Evan because he’s been carjacked,
left naked in a small Mexican border town. Ignoring the advice of his co-worker
Elizabeth (Alison Brie) and boss MacDonaldson (Lance Reddick), Evan gets
essentially hijacked by Jason to help out the third spoke in their friendship
wheel. Along the way, they run into Krysten Ritter (“Marvel’s Jessica Jones”),
Jason Mantzoukas (“The League”), Jon Glaser (“Parks and Recreation”) and J.B.
Smoove (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”). I’ve seen awards shows with less TV stars in
the room.

And yet none of them are given anything interesting to do. Armstrong and co-writers Mike Gagerman & Andrew Waller keep
throwing their protagonists into increasingly bizarre situations in the hope
something will register as funny. When the film gets to an EXTENDED bit that
riffs on the kidney-stealing urban legend at the end of the first act, you can
just watch all potential for it to become something interesting dissipate. (This
is the point that most people will change the channel on cable.) It’s the kind
of script that features a grown man lying on the floor in a moment of
depression and saying “I’m a dirty cum rag,” and can’t go to Mexico without
using “La Bamba,” “La Cucaracha” and a man covered in cocaine—in the same scene. It eventually devolves into one of
those weird, “Huh?” movies in that I never thought I’d see J.B. Smoove lick
cocaine off Thomas Middleditch’s face or Jason Mantzoukas shoot an arrow into
Adam Pally’s ass. But there are a lot of things here I never thought I’d see that
just aren’t funny.

“Search Party” is one of those stunning failures in relation to its cast's talent. To their credit, Middleditch and Pally
are asked to do a lot of physical comedy by their director—the “Silicon Valley”
star spends most of the movie butt-naked (that still above either photoshopped in the shorts or it was an alternate take for airplane and network TV versions that will never happen)—and they’re always game for
everything, further proving their willingness to do whatever takes to get a
laugh. Miller, Ritter, Mantzoukas, Smoove, Brie—I love this cast, even if I
most certainly do not love this movie. In that sense, “Search Party” pays off
on my morbid fascination, proving that even if you invite a lot of
talented people to the set, the result won’t work if you don’t give them a way
to show why they’re considered talented.

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